Entry 1-24-02 (originally written 1-19-02)"...when you cut into the present the future leaks out."

"I watch the smoke from the dhoop sticks spiral in the light of the old halogen lamp as I sip Chartreuse from a Jagermeister glass; alchemy, if one believes the enameled legend. Quick brown bug poison to green gold. Everything we ingest is a chemical. As I sit the smoke uncannily changes direction to drift toward me, as though it loves me. I wonder what will happen when the sticks have burned down... can I light new incense from the stumps or will I need another match? And what will become of me when I burn down? The light through the cordial glass is faintly green like my skin, but not minty, nearer to yellow... it is not easily described, and I am unsurprised that it was simply named after the liqueur, three centuries ago when there were no synthetics. And my color, I have learned, is the color of the universe, or its opposite. If the wavelength of all the visible light from all the stars in the universe is averaged, the resulting hue is a mint green, the color my skin reflects. I am the color that the universe is not. Others see only what I transmit."